Cultures of secrecy in pre-modern papal elections

This chapter focuses on the theme of secrecy – an important subject for inquiry in its own right. It looks at how political and theological factors interacted to shape attitudes to secrecy in various forms over an extended period. The chapter shows how the evolving culture of secrecy reflected the strange hybrid constitution that gave rise to it: an elective monarchy with elements drawn from contemporary ideas about princes, older ecclesiastical strata and even the political practices of the ancient Roman Republic. It addresses changing understandings of secrecy and their immediate impact; they explain how theology justified – or even mandated – such understandings and how they interacted with the political calculations that all cardinals had to make individually or corporately. The chapter considers how secrecy impacted the ceremonies associated with the election, ongoing papal administration during it and the attitude of the Roman populace to what they saw taking place